AUSTIN — Kathleen Hartnett White, Distinguished Senior Fellow-in-Residence and Director of the Armstrong Center for Energy and the Environment at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, issued this statement on the U.S. Supreme Court’s Environmental Protection Agency air pollution ruling in EPA v. EME Homer City Generation:

“The Supreme Court’s 6-2 ruling upholding the EPA’s Transport Rule runs roughshod over the clear language of the federal Clean Air Act, and the state authority enshrined in the fundamental structure of that law. As Justice Scalia’s dissent from the Court’s majority holding states, ‘This remarkably expansive reasoning makes a hash of the Clean Air Act, transforming it from a program based on cooperative federalism to one of centralized federal control.’

“The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the National Electric Reliability Council concluded several years ago that the Transport Rule and the Mercury rule, effective in 2015, pose the greatest threat to our nation’s electric power system over the next five years. The Supreme Court’s decision only reinforces that threat.

“Disturbingly, a majority of the Supreme Court has vindicated EPA’s lawless regulatory spree, reinforcing rather than restraining regulation which substitutes the preferred statist policy of the bureaucratic elites for law created by our elected representatives in the U.S. Congress. The Supreme Court’s ruling on the EPA’s Transport Rule highlights the urgent need for reform of the Clean Air Act by our elected representatives.”

Kathleen Hartnett White is a Distinguished Senior Fellow-in-Residence and the Director for the Armstrong Center for Energy & the Environment. Former Chairman for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (2001-2007).